June 5, 2010

Here's the story, about a mural that some citizens complained about because it depicted "a black guy" or 2.

I'd like to see a "before" picture, showing the entire mural, because there's some complexity about what it meant for the artist to be told to "lighten" the faces in the painting. The school officials said "to make the kids look like they were 'radiating with happiness,'" so there might be some issue of them conveying the wrong mood. "Lighten" is an ambiguous word — lighten up! — but it's also highly inflammatory to say "lighten" with respect to the skin tone of the faces in the mural.

And then there's City Councilman Steve Blair who had — he's now fired — a local radio talk show, who's been saying things like: "I disagree with the whole perspective that you would have a black guy painted on two sides of that building when the history of Prescott never had a culture issue." You do now.

Speaking of painting, Arizonans are being painted in the media as racists. With the hot national issue about immigration enforcement, any little thing like this will be picked up and used to propagate the meme. You may think you've got a local issue and be willing to engage in loose talk and feel sure you're not really a bad person, but you will look like hell when it's picked up nationally. I've seen a lot of bad murals around town, using big looming faces to convey "progressive" political messages, and I can imagine someone who wasn't a racist at all bitching about them in words that would look quite awful quoted in the national press.

I deplore racism — don't we all? — but can we also talk about the atrocious murals that get slathered onto the walls of our towns? The "diversity" theme is so common in these monstrosities, and I'd hate to see accusations of racism work to silence criticism of artwork that needs to complained about.

IN THE COMMENTS: lemondog links to what I think are pre-alteration photos of the mural, and it's hard to detect a surly, hostile, or aggressive look on the faces. They are already "radiating with happiness." How ecstatic do you want kids to be about going green? I dislike government propaganda murals (and anti-government propaganda murals), but the idea of lightening the faces is bad.

This is just plain false. They passed a law that will lead to people of certain skin color be required to "show their papers."

Their law has been criticized and them for passing it. That's not unfair.

I suppose this statement is not racist, either:

""We got a raghead in Washington; we don't need one in South Carolina," Knotts said more than once. "She's a raghead that's ashamed of her religion trying to hide it behind being Methodist for political reasons.""

"We consistently, for two months, had people shouting racial slander from their cars," Wall said. "We had children painting with us, and here come these yells of (epithet for Blacks) and (epithet for Hispanics)."

Watch your speech, people. You're not really free to speak your mind in America any more. What you say can get you visited by the Committee to Stamp Out Racism And Promote Correct Though™.

Seriously, I'll just remind everyone right now: it's still not against the law to have racist beliefs and talk about them. It is rude, but that's not against the law either. It's also not against the law not to like everyone, even if the reason you don't like them is irrational. A lot of people don't like this, but tough shit.

I do not know, but it could also be that Prescott has a very low percentage of black population, and the councilman inartfully is questioning why a black person is so prominently displayed in a mural intended to represent the City at large. In other words, it is indeed about the culture wars rather than a racial problem.

I'd like to buy the world a coke and live in peaceful harmony too,but first the world needs to lay off Jew murdering and targeting white Americans in Arizona for a truce period, like between North and South Korea. The whole issue is a DMZ with American military might to stand behind it. That is all the defense of Arizona needs, just like the defense of Israel. Both are highly honorable people who are being semantically portrayed by government-media liars as evil problem people.

Of humor: My cousin was the only Asian at her private grade school. Her photograph appeared in every piece of the school's literature until her parents complained.

I went to college at Evergreen which (and I suppose I say this with a little bit of nostalgic fondness) is about as commie pinko/worship diversity as you can get for a state school. And was, of course, lily white. One of my good friends was black ... and if there was a brochure, by God, he was in it! We used to joke that if they weren't careful, he might end up in the same picture twice.

2) Diversity, like global warming and socialism, are core religious beliefs of the left. Their commandments cannot be questioned, and unbelievers will be publicly shamed, impoverished by lawsuits, or jailed. Offenders are sent for re-education, though some suggest they be killed or 'rounded up.'

3) White males are kulaks in the new religion, like Jews among Christians in the middle ages, tolerated by the society at large if they keep their mouths shut and their purses open.

Is there any disagreement between people and leftists that does not immediately become a charge of racism by the left. Think about it. I bet you can't find one. It's neurotic, like my little sister used to use "He punched me in the stomach." every time we had a dispute that Mom needed to settle. It worked well once and she never stopped going back to it, no matter what the issue. Of course she outgrew that at about 8 years old.

WV: "nationfu" Clearly WV is a bunch of comedy writers sitting in a room somewhere with a keg of beer.

The Republican Party's southern strategy is a pretty clear case of racism.

“For the last 40-plus years we had a ‘Southern Strategy’ that alienated many minority voters by focusing on the white male vote in the South. Well, guess what happened in 1992, folks, ‘Bubba’ went back home to the Democratic Party and voted for Bill Clinton.”

- Michael Steele

He joins Ken Mehlman, another former RNC Chair, in coming clean on this racist tactic by the Republicans.

""We consistently, for two months, had people shouting racial slander from their cars," Wall said. "We had children painting with us, and here come these yells of (epithet for Blacks) and (epithet for Hispanics)."

Yeah, I saw that, and I knew it would be brought up in the comments. It reminds me a little of the claims about the n-word being shouted at that Tea Party at the Capitol a while back. Did it happen? Cars drove by. No specific person is accused. Just cars that are gone. People on one side of the debate make an assertion, but there's no video and no one is identified who can even deny it. And everyone is supposed to be silenced by the accusation. It's serious if it happened, but even then: exactly what was said and what did it mean? Who said it? Was it idiot teenagers who wanted to provoke the fey artist for fun or was it adults who really don't want to see pictures of black people?

The pro-mural folks are making their argument, and we are not able to examine it critically with neutral evidence.

Alpha...By definition only a Gringo can be a rascist. Ask the Mexifornians ruling cadre to explain that to you. The hispanic ancestery does not make one a racial group...but that is the propaganda meme now plastering every communications media as if it is true.

I've come to accept racism. There has always been racism and always will be racism. No group is exempt. That's the way of the human condition. Some of the most vile racism that I've heard has come from blacks. Blacks seem to absolutely hate Hmongs. Blacks also don't seem to like people from Africa. Go figure.

"Why do you guys call it a "diversity mural?" Do you call murals that if they have non-whites in them?"

One person used that expression. I said "The 'diversity' theme is so common." Alpha, you live in Madison, don't you? Do you seriously not know what I am talking about? Have you ever been to the Memorial Union, indoors, near the Rathskeller. Take an excursion there and stare at those things for 15 minutes, then come back and tell me you don't know.

"GMay, Robert Byrd renounced his affiliation with the Klan and has supported policies the Klan opposes since."

Riiiight. As if that would be excusable if he were a Supreme Court Nominee. As if that would be excused if he were a Republican/Conservative. As if a Republican could get away with saying the stupid racist shit he gets away with.

No, I'm not. I'm speculating about what the facts might be and pointing out the ways in which the media reports are denying us a full view of the evidence. I condemn racism on this blog all the time. But I also hate government murals.

Ann, more than one person here has referred to the mural as a diversity mural. Freeman Hunt, bagoh20, Gerard.

No, I didn't! I haven't even looked at the mural. I said that people my age have no problem making fun of diversity art. For example, at summer camp someone at our lunch table once made a joke that we looked like a stereotypical diversity poster (blonde girl, white guy, Indian guy, black guy, Hispanic guy, Asian girl, Jewish guy, etc.)

No need to "lighten" this blog as no one here is racist, but I do detect a strain of anti-muralism or at least a critical perspective quick to point out what is "aggressively propagandist" as not acceptable. No murals by Diego Rivera on Pan American Unity.And certainly none of those WPA murals by Wisconsin artist Santos Zingale that disgrace the Paul Bunyan Room in the Union.

Do we remember the 9/11 firefighter memorial? Three fire-fighters, each a different race, hoisting the American flag over the rubble--except that two of the three races presented weren't there that day.

It was a small thing but it angered people. The statue was based on a famous photograph, but they put imaginary faces on two of them. Firefighters who thought they were getting an accurate representation felt cheated, because they knew the three guys in the picture.

Also, blacks and Hispanics were seriously overrepresented, since they made up about 3% each of the NYFD at that time, yet got 33% of the statue apiece. They didn't make one (or two) of them female, did they?

I personally don't care who they put in the statue, but a lot oif people felt like 9/11 was taking a backseat to diversity.

Alpha Lib said..." Rick, the only racism you can see is from black people.

Not one example of white-initiated racism."

My point, Alpha, which clearly whizzed by your cranium, was that racism, since the beginning of time, has been laid at the doorstep of the caucasian race. All races have their racists. Some are open, some are in the closet. The sooner we as a people (that would be all Americans) get passed focusing on color, the better off our country would be.

Sharpton and Jackson not only have focused on race, they have profited handsomely from it.

People like Alpha don't 'deplore' racism; they love it. It's one the the sticks the Lefties use to beat people to get their way. Alpha loves racism - white as a straw man, black (or any other kind) because Whitey (El Gringo, etc.) deserves it.

PS Sounds like we've got an 'artist' looking for a little Lefty street cred by throwing a fit.

The Ashkenazim are not a race? If they are "merely" an ethnic group, then isn't the claim that Helen Thomas is "not a racist" built on a semantic nitpick; and that if it is not "racism," it is technically as ugly and reprehensible as racism?

When the subject of race is brought up here (or anywhere else for that matter) the lefty's are both totally predictable and utterly beyond parody. It all used to be vaguely amusing, but now is just sickening. As old Strother Martin would say: "What we have here is failure to communicate." Meaning, obviously, that everyone in the little psycho-drama understands each other all too well...

What we have here," is a dialogue of the deaf--ships passing in the night--never the twain shall meet--you name it, it applies. No minds changed; the only outcome possible being the political/cultural triumph of one side over the other. AL and I might as well be living in parallel universes--and we are.....We all live in a racial M.C. Escher world now..

But I can easily imagine in a parallel world, there would be someone calling Prescott residents racist for having a mural in which the black children were portrayed as too dark.I know I've seen uproars over images of OJ and Obama being (or supposedly being) darkened.

"They've made all the black children look sinister! It's just racist!"

Thanks, but I'm still waiting to see what the original mural looks like. You're showing the smiling face after the artist "lightened" it up (and made it happier, supposedly). I want to know what the face that was criticized looked like.

AL is really having a bad day. I hope his yard work gets done. For anyone to deny the existence of a "diversity mural" cliche is beyond absurd. (I prefer the "red and yellow, black and white - they are precious in his sight" title, but "diversity mural" is shorter.)

To answer AL's question about "racist" behavior, I've seen plenty of bigoted and clannish behavior by whites toward blacks. People who won't drive through black neighborhoods, won't buy a home in a black neighborhood, trust black salesmen/customers less than white salesmen/customers. As someone who lived through the sixties and seventies I can say that it is a LOT better than it was. But bigotry is still with us. This, of course, has a terrible impact on blacks because its worse to have 90% of the country mistrust you (even a little bit) than to have 10% of the country mistrust you (even a lot).

But in terms of the use of the power of the state or private institutions like universities, churches, or corporations to explicitly give an advantage to one race over another - that has gone from exclusively white over black to exclusively black over white.

Reverse discrimination has been justified by the continued existence of white prejudice. It is not clear to me that it is a successful strategy for eliminating prejudice. It has not been successful in ensuring equal outcomes. It has been a very successful strategy for giving more power to liberals.

I live in a nearly all white neighborhood adjacent to a nearly all black neighborhood.

I live next to a high school that is 85% black due to forced busing.

In the last month I have been burglarized twice including yesterday when the cops called me home to where they had just caught 4 young black men in my house. The earlier burglary of my car was also a black guy.

In both cases they got away with nothing and were all apprehended. This good outcome was due almost entire to profiling. Either the neighbors or the cops found that black men lingering in an all white neighborhood necessitated investigation. Was that wrong?

Just some facts about my recent life that may be tangential.

I'm a goddamn criminal trap. Five down with no lost property. I need a cape and tights. Next.

this is just plain false. They passed a law that will lead to people of certain skin color be required to "show their papers."

I'm not a fan of the law but I'm getting really fed up with the hyperbole around it. And over time I'm seeing some really twisted takes on its inherent racism. Here's an article about a Tucson policeman who works the southside of Tucson (heavily hispanic.) And I quote:He says officers would inevitably apply the law "based on how a person talks or what they look like."

So here's what I don't get. He's hispanic. His beat is hispanic. He likely speaks Spanish. Many/most in his precinct speak Spanish. I would expect some illegal immigrants to be in his precinct (as he suggests.)

So how would enforcing this law where nearly everyone is Mexican or of Mexican descent, where many speak Spanish, be viewed as racial profiling or racist?

Lemondog thanks for linking us to pixs of the mural before the lightening. Indeed I noticed an "aggressive propaganda look" in the boy who wore a fur cap and buckskin as he clearly had been indoctrinated by liberal teachers, but am not sure if I could detect it in the mural.

Listening to the guy it seems his objections are that the mural is ginormous and he doesn't like it and he figured that the right process was not gone through to have the mural and it's content approved by the community.

Looking at the gallery the picture with the person in front of the mural puts it into perspective. It's HUGE. Some of the other parts are more reasonable and interesting and full of the sort of symbolism one expects.

I'm less than motivated by the "go green" thing and wonder if the political content of a mural on public property isn't inappropriate.

I didn't see where the objections were linked to the darkness of the 40 Foot Boy. The changes could well have been to make the painting appear happier. Certainly with something that size a person would have to stand way back and look at it for a while to see if it was right... like the difference between a paint-chip from the hardware store and a fully painted wall.

"I've tried in numerous threads here to engage the conservatives and find out what is an example of a racist act.

They refuse to name anything."

What a liar. We call you on your racism all of the time so you know exactly what we think counts as racism. Your frequent expressions suggesting that minorities are less capable than others is racism. Racism are the attitudes that people have that separate races and treat them differently. Racism is judgment according to race.

That you think it's something else, that you're innocent of it and pretty much all liberals are innocent of it, and that somehow you're required to judge and separate and treat people as racial groups does NOT equate to anyone refusing to *name* racism to you.

In any case, as bias against those with darker skin goes it's not white people who have that problem. Darker skin within a group means labor in the sun. It signifies the uneducated class in many cultures and ethnicities around the whole world... probably all of them except for Caucasians. Caucasians interpret a tan as proof of leisure time and wealth. A white person who is prejudiced isn't all that likely to make a distinction between a light and dark skinned black person, a light or dark skinned Mexican, a dark or light skinned Persian, or Asian, or Indian, American or otherwise.

"And I quote:He says officers would inevitably apply the law "based on how a person talks or what they look like.""

Which is other things than "Hispanic."

When I was in the Philippines and there were Americans ambushed and killed there I did not worry all that much that I would not be able to identify a group of Filippinos in a truck wearing fatigues and carrying mismatched weapons with athletic tape on the stocks who were a threat from an identical group that was not a threat based on HOW THEY LOOKED.

Will police in Arizona know by LOOKING who to ask for identification if the police-contact conditions are met? Yes. Will they end up asking random Hispanic looking persons on account of them being Hispanic and so end up wasting their time on lots of innocent Hispanic US citizens? No. And I don't believe any of those insisting that this is *racial* profiling believe that police will actually be harassing people for looking Hispanic rather than because they *look* illegal. And *illegal* isn't a race.

Not any more than a cop stopping a working girl is responding to race, no matter how much they are responding to behavior and signifiers that communicate that one is a prostitute.

It just makes a good political argument with the added advantage of adding points to a personal "I'm not a racist" tally.

Why don't you find yourself a nice colored girl and settle down. Quit worring about what white people think. It's also none of your business what some white people, especially white girls choose as far as a religion. New Age, New Cult or whatever. Now, reach around and pull your shorts out of your black motherfuckin ass.

You and Obama may be raging narcissists, but you're obviously so much smarter and have your finger on the pulse of like, the whole fucking country man. I cleanse my impure thoughts in the purity of your guiding light. Lead the way in all your self-satisfied glory!

What I don't think that Crack gets (though I don't fault him for being annoyed) is that ignoring racism as a topic would be wonderful if it weren't for the fact that white conservatives and libertarians and everyone else not firmly "liberal" have racism used as a weapon against us, clobbering us with it on every single last issue.

Say some guy (probably named AlphaLiberal) has a 30 pound salmon by the tail and every time someone expresses an opinion about culture or government or anything else he swings that salmon.

The population of Prescott, AZ is 43,011 of which 8.2% is non-white, significantly lower than the statewide 25.7%. The minority population of Miller Valley School specifically, however, is 40%, though still lower than the AZ-wide school average of 55%. Using these figures, the mural no longer seems so far out of whack racially.

Perhaps the more telling statistic is that of age distribution in Prescott. Half of the city's population is over 51 years old, and 30.2% is over 65 (statewide and nationally the median age is 35 and 36.7 respectively, whereas the over-65 demographic represents 13% and 12.6% of the whole in AZ and nationally). Can you say retirement community? Given the propensity of older individuals to hold less accommodating views on race, it's not surprising that the issue has come to a head. What seems odd to me, is that it didn't sooner. I'd bet dollars to donuts that alderman keeps his job.

Yes, GMay, I was. It certainly adds more to the discussion than your enlightened comments. Go back and read each of your additions to this thread. You could replace each with "liberals suck" and lose no context.